


Here and Now

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Birthday Presents, Crossdressing, Every time I think I've hit rockbottom I just keep digging, Hermaphroditic Trolls, Interspecies, M/M, Tentabulges, Trolls on Earth AU, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which five years, 200 miles, and all the complexities of not being the same species aren't enough to keep Karkat from falling in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here and Now

**Author's Note:**

> A couple-days-late birthday gift for Maddie/Red, my favorite IRL Karkat and my favorite Johnkat artist. See you soon, dearest. Tweaked a bit since initial posting, too.
> 
> Also, mood music - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwjIFk2vlrc&feature=related

Karkat remembers, quite clearly, the first time he met John.  
  
It was summertime in the suburbs - that hazy late afternoon hour when everyone else is inside playing video games because, let's face it, no one actually wants to play hopscotch in the culdesac or ride bikes up and down the half block considered a 'safe' distance from the one troll house in the neighborhood.  
  
Karkat was seated on the porch steps, unenthusiastically stabbing at a cup of cheap lemon ice, listening to his lusus inside screeching at the telephone over some new obstacle that the homeowner's association had thrown at them.  Species equality his ass.  
  
He'd seen enough of the world at six to know there really wasn't any such thing. There was always, always going to be a 'them' and an 'us' no matter what the color of your skin or blood was.  
  
 _Always._  
  
Fed up with everything, Karkat was seriously considering tossing his lemon ice on the ground just to see it melt when someone shouted.  
  
His head jerked up.  
  
A man was walking towards him, something curved and plastic sticking out from a corner of his mouth and a cake in hand.  Behind him trailed a human boy a bit older than Karkat (and much taller, to his dismay) with glasses and a faint overbite.  
  
The human kid gives him a look - of suspicion but not open dislike - then glued his eyes on his lusus as the man greeted Karkat.  
  
"Hello there, son.  I heard you were new in the neighborhood?"  
  
"Homeowner's association try to warn you off, too?"  Karkat squeezed the cup to loosen the ice, then downed the rest in a swallow, trying to look tough.  "Assholes."  
  
The man raised an eyebrow slightly.  Karkat tried to scowl through the brainfreeze that followed, but failed.  The kid snickered, then went silent at a stern look from his father.  
  
"I came to welcome you, actually.  The association and I have never been on the best of terms."  The man smiled again, a little mischief twinkling in his eyes.  "I brought some homemade cake.  Is your... lusus home?"  
  
Karkat licked his lips and stood, jerking the door open and standing to the side.  "Crabdad, we got company!"  
  
There was an answering screech and it was Karkat's turn to snicker as the human kid paled at the sight of the significantly sized lusus who was Karkat's sole companion.  The adult, however, didn't so much as blink.  
  
"Good evening, Mr. Vantas."  
  
Crabdad clicked, then managed a butchered "Chello.  Con inside, leese."  Lusii were pretty terrible at even Alternian - English was almost impossible, which was why Karkat was so fluent at such a young age.  He'd had to learn to speak for both of them.  
  
The man introduced himself - "Mr. Egbert, if you please, and this is my son John." - as he followed Crabdad into the kitchen, dismissing his son with a wave of his hand.  Karkat wanted to follow them, make sure Egbert wasn't there to mock his lusus for his poor English, but Crabdad hissed instructions over his shoulder.  
  
"Ente-tay yo' guest, Karkat."  
  
The troll whirled on the human boy as soon as their lusii were out of sight, but John was already staring around at the walls.  
  
"Man, you guys haven't been here long, have you?  Nothing up on the walls.  No pictures... nothing."  
  
"Yeah, well, your species hasn't done anything to make us feel especially welcome."  Karkat started to stomp up to his respite block, only to realize John was following.  Shit.  "What do you want, fucknuts?"  
  
"Woah," John chuckled, "how old are you?"  
  
"Eight."  
  
The human let out a low whistle.  "You've got quite the mouth on you, buddy.  If my dad heard me say a quarter of the things you do, I'd be tasting soap for hours."  
  
"What the fuck does that mean?"  
  
Karkat paused with his hand on the doorknob, ready to whip it open and slam it shut when John grinned again.  
  
"Means you're a cool kid.  For being, like, a baby and all."  
  
"Go to hell!"  
  
This time he did nip inside and close the door on the human's dorky face.  The door rattled as John tugged on the knob.  
  
"Hey!  Don't be such a dick, man."  
  
Karkat shouted at the locked door, feeling brave and powerful over this too-tall, too-weird human. "Suck my bonebulge!"  
  
"What does that even mean, you crazy alien?"  
  
"It means go the fuck away, you--"  
  
The door opened, suddenly - almost smacking Karkat in the nose.  John slips some kind of metal pick or pin back behind his ear, then ruffled the troll's hair.  
  
"Dude, you haven't even let me sign your wall yet.  Chill."  
  
"Sign... my what?"  
  
John grinned again, looking sinister and gleeful and, Karkat noted with horror, cool.  "It's a human tradition.  Whenever you move in, you have to let your first house guest write their name on your bedroom wall with a sharpie."  
  
"A what?"  
  
"Permanent marker," and John whipped one out of his pocket with a grin, then headed over to the biggest, blankest wall he could find.  "Nice slimesack, dude, what's it for?"  
  
"My recuperacoon is not a slimesack, you ignorant nookstain, and--" There's a huge hook shape on his wall now, right in the center, almost half as tall as Karkat.  "What the fuck?"  
  
John finished his name, with plenty of flourishes and such an expression of profound concentration Karkat couldn't so much as step to stop him.  "There.  Isn't it wonderful?"  
  
Karkat really... didn't know how to respond to it, so he shrugged. "It's just like all your other human things, weird as fuck.  What else are you writing, dude?"  
  
"My chum handle," he chuckled, adding 'ghostlyTrickster' to the left edge of the 'N' in a much more reasonable sized writing.  "You know, Pesterchum?"  
  
"Yeah," Karkat lied.  "I know."  
  
"Add me sometime, okay?  You're a pretty cool kid.  For being a troll and six and everything.  Just don't tell TG I said that, okay?"  
  
John ruffled his hair again, this time brushing one of Karkat's horns and sending a tiny tingle down his spine.  Karkat snarled and snapped at the hand, and John stuck his tongue out, and then Karkat chased him down the stairs and three times around the outside of the house before he caught him.  
  
Rolling on the grass, Karkakt still growling and John laughing, it was the best welcome he'd ever received.  
  
\---  
  
Over time, they grew even closer - on weekdays they'd chat over Pesterchum from across the street, sitting in the windows of their bedrooms and waving (from John) or flipping the bird (Karkat).  The troll was never really sure how he felt about John.  They were a strange sort of friends - not someone he could spill all his secrets too like a moirail, not someone he needed to sort out disputes with like an auspicitice.  If he was hated John, the feeling was gone the next morning, and if he ever pitied him the feeling was gone the next time John pranked him (which was almost every day.)  
  
But it wasn't until senior year hit John, and puberty hit Karkat, that things started to change.  
  
The troll would sit out of sight in his window in the morning, getting up early and staying up extra late just to try and catch a glimpse of John getting ready for his day.  With exams and drama with his now-ex girlfriend Rose Lalonde, they hardly had time to talk that last, long spring.  And when they finally did...

  
CG: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE MOVING AWAY  
EB: hey, it's not like i'll be gone forever!  
EB: i'll still be home a couple weekends.  
EB: and then all summer long!  
EB: you'll be so busy you won't even notice i'm gone.  
CG: I SERIOUSLY DOUBT THAT, JOHN. DISTRACTING MYSELF FROM UNPLEASANT THINGS HAS NEVER BEEN MY STRONG SUIT.  
CG: THIS IS ALMOST AS BAD AS BREAKING UP WITH TEREZI.  
EB: aw, dude, don't say that! i promise i won't start pining after mister strider while i'm away.  
EB: i'll chat with you between classes and everything, okay?  
  
 _No,_ Karkat thought, with his head buried in between his hands, curtains drawn so John couldn't see the way he cried, _nothing is okay.  Nothing at all._  
  
That conversation had happened almost a year ago, punctuated with only the briefest chats in between.  Karkat was almost grateful, though - John had left just in time to miss all the awkwardness that followed as the troll discovered just what John meant to him.  
  
Everything.  
  
Now, Karkat only has to close his eyes and picture John the last time he saw him - working outside at his house, stripped to the waist and almost glowing with the cast of his sunscreen - and his bulge is already starting to slither out to wrap around his fingers.  
  
He'd thought John liked him, too.  Once or twice he'd get some kind of sharpened expression, like when they were watching movies together, John at  seventeen and Karkat at twelve, and Karkat's bloodpusher would kick up but... nothing ever happened.  
  
Karkat closes his eyes in the shower, leans his forehead against the wall and strokes himself gently.  He's fifteen now, and John...  
  
John's 19th birthday is tomorrow.  He's coming home for it, just after his last final.  Then next week he'll start up his summer road trips to Houston, to New York, everywhere that takes him far away from Karkat.  
  
He knows he's being jealous, petty even - but he wants John and needs John on such a bone-aching level that nothing he can do to himself can satisfy this feeling of emptiness. But... maybe tomorrow will be different.  
  
\---  
  
Karkat adjusts his clothes one last time - the too-tall socks, the too-short skirt - and tries not to panic.  Every sane cell in his think pan is screaming that this is a terrible idea, but he'll never get a chance like this again.  
  
Crabdad's gone for the day, off shopping, and John's dad is spending all day at work; so there were no plans to work around when Karkat invited the now-sophomore student to his place to 'watch a movie or something' where 'or something' meant 'sex.'  
  
He'd done research, even, looked at human porn videos until he felt sick, watched stiff human bulges enter human nooks with all the speed and grace of pistons on construction equipment and only a little more appealing.  Now, dressed to the nines in clothes he'd gotten from Vriska (god only knew how, she was just a year older than him and already buying lingerie) he was terrified but... exhilarated.  
  
The knock on the door still takes him by surprise though - he sneaks a glance out the window just to confirm his suspicions, and is greeted by the sight of John.  
  
Disgustingly tall and handsome, even more than he remembered - hair still faintly damp from his shower, tee shirt just a little tight across his shoulders, jeans just a little low on his hips - every thing about him, inside and out, is all Karkat's ever wanted.  
  
"It's unlocked," he shouts, not daring to be seen in the doorway like this.  Heartbeat pounding, throat constricting, he hovers around the corner of the stairs, just out of sight.  The door opens, and John pokes his head in, looking around curiously - probably checking for pranks.  
  
Karkat loses his nerve.  He can't do this - he can't risk a childhood friendship for some hormonal fantasy.  So he runs back to his room.  
  
And, of course, John follows him.  
  
Karkat's fumbling with the door to his closet, trying to open it fast enough to change out of this ridiculous get-up - but, too late.  John bursts in, the grin that lights up his too-blue eyes every time he looks at Karkat faltering as he takes in the troll's clothes.  
  
"Are those-- garters?  Karkat, what are you _doing_?"  
  
The question is followed by a little burst of air,like a chuckles that died before it left his mouth - John's shaking his head slightly, hiding his face behind one hand and looking completely baffled but maybe a little...  
  
Red?  
  
Karkat swallows and changes his mind.  
  
"I... I wanted to... "  
  
The lines he'd tried to hard to memorize splutter and die in the face of this.  He's a loser. Delusional.  He's just a fifteen year old fucking kid, and John's only into females and they're not even the same species but John's...  
  
Still here.  Still trying to understand what Karkat wants.  
  
"Kiss me," he whispers, stepping closer to the human.  He reaches out with a shaking hand.  
  
John's eyes widen.  
  
He backs away.  _Of course he would_ , Karkat scolds himself, _you're a repulsive little freak with an inter-species kink trying to pass as something desirable._  
  
"I shouldn't."  
  
But he doesn't leave.  He doesn't say _can't_ , or _won't,_ or _couldn't,_ and for now he's still here.  
  
If he leaves now, though, Karkat'll never get another shot.  
  
So, he sidesteps him, cuts him off from the door.  "I want you to.  I... I want to be your present."  
  
John makes a kind of choked noise - of horror?  of lust?  God, he can't tell - and swallows.  Then he adopts his father's Serious Business tone.  
  
"Karkat, I'm... I'm too old for you, okay?  You..."  
  
His eye travel over Karkat's body again, up the black stockings attached to girlish briefs by thin silky straps, up the corset with the padded bra that almost, almost gave Karkat the illusion of feminine grace.  He's still considering though, and that's all Karkat needs to know.  
  
So he slinks up, pinning John against the wall with his name on it without ever touching him, then pushes himself up on his tiptoes to just barely kiss the only part of John he can reach.  Black lips, made darker with makeup, leave a lip-shaped inky stain on John's adam's apple.  Then, he retreats.  
  
But not far.  
  
John's hand catches his face, tilts it up and presses a equally gentle kiss on Karkat's mouth.  Their eyes both flutter closed as they melt into each other, John's hands large and warm and just holding Karkat close like he's precious to him.  
  
The troll pulls away first, taking in a slow and shaky breath, then guides John's hand down to his hips.  They kiss, again, as John's fingers trace the curves of Karkat's thighs and bottom - first cupping gently, then lifting to wrap slender grey legs around his waist.  
  
At this height, it's so much easier for John to kiss Karkat, affectionate pecks all over his face - too tender.  It's hurting Karkat, all these emotions, so he hides his face in John's neck and bites.  The human's breath hitches, and he squeezes Karkat tighter to him.  
  
"Are you sure you--"  
  
He cuts him off the only way he can think of; with his mouth, and fierce fiery kisses he means with passion and lust he only half feigns.  John grunts, then reaches down to slide a  hand between their groins, slide a finger across the entrance to Karkat's nook.  In the moment, it's all the stimulation his bulge needs to unsheathe, slick and hyper-sensitive as it writhes between his skin and the delicate undergarments.  
  
John groans and pull away to glance down - Karkat closes his eyes and tilts his head to the ceiling, not wanting to see John's expression.  But... he doesn't seem bothered by alien genitalia, instead just fumbles with the straps on the garters until he can slide down the panties a bit without disturbing the socks.  
  
"You like the clothes?"  Karkat manages, as John's long fingers trace along his nook again and up to wrap his bulge with heartbreaking care.  He doesn't reply, just kisses him again, then disentangles his hands enough to pin Karkat to the wall, slide him down so he was standing again.  
  
John shimmies the undergarments down fully, Karkat stepping out of them clumsily but obediently, and none of the porn he'd watched could have prepared him for the feel of John's mouth on his bulge.  
  
His legs buckle, and he has to grab at John's hair just to stay somewhat upright as lips and teeth and tongue combine to throw the nerve-laced organ into sensory overdrive - then John pins his bulge between his tongue and palette and sucks and Karkat nearly finishes right then.  
  
"No," he gasps, sobbing almost - John pulls away, quickly, leaving his bulge to writhe in pain at the rush of cool air and his heart to sink as the worried expression that greeted him.  Karkat yanks John back for another kiss, sucking and nipping at his friend's lips as he tries to tug off John's pants.  
  
He seems to get the idea across, at least, because John slides both layers down obediently, and lets Karkat tentatively palm his dick.  It's strange, hot and hard and alien to the troll, but when he hooks a leg around John's hips they reach an agreement quickly enough.  
  
Too quickly, he'll think later, just like how John too quickly presses in, breaching Karkat's predominately untouched nook with mutual gasps.  It hurts, more than he could have ever imagined, but at the same time...  
  
John lifts him against the wall, presses more affectionate kisses punctuated with a groan as he pulled out and slid back in, gentler this time.  "Sorry, got a little carried away.  You all right?"  
  
Karkat bursts out crying.  
  
Neither of them move for a moment - John starts to pull away but Karkat won't let him, wrapping his legs around him tighter and trying, so hard, to stifle the sobs of pain and affection that made his body shake even more than the unreleased sexual tension did.  
  
"Are you--"  
  
"I'm fine, okay, I'm just a dumbass and a virgin and a fucking crybaby, just sh-shut up and go back t-to what you were doing."  
  
"Hey," John rubs noses with Karkat, ignoring the hand that rose between them to wipe away some snot, "look at me. "  
  
He obeys, still blinking back red-tinted tears.  John smiles gently.  
  
"I love you, all right?  I honestly do.  So if you want me to, I can just like... put you down and stuff and we can do this later, like I kinda hoped we would--"  
  
"John, if you don't finish what you f-fucking started and accept your goddamn birthday present, I swear I will n-never talk to you again."  
  
And John laughs, and it should have killed the mood, the entire breakdown and feelings jam intermission, but when he rolls his hips and goes in a little deeper, Karkat sucks in a deep breath between his teeth.  
  
He'd never forget this, either - the way the pace picked up until Karkat was worried they'd punch through the drywall, the way everything went too-bright just before he came all over the carpet and John's legs and how they laid together in the afterglow for no more than five minutes before spending three hours with the carpet cleaner trying to get the stains out.  
  
That evening, when John's standing in his doorway, both of them in a clean set of clothes, with the sunset sparkling behind him and a wistful expression on his cheeks, Karkat doesn't beg him to stay when they hug goodbye.  
  
Because he already knows John can't.  He's got college and a life beyond these pitiful little suburbs, more than Karkat could wish for.  
  
But maybe, he'll come back.


End file.
